Internet Alliance Roundtable is a monthly event host by IA Corporate Member to showcase its company profile, business philosophy and speciality in the tech industry. A topic that highlights on a specific concern of the industry will bring up for discussion, such as the current issues – challenges & opportunities, of the industry.

In April, we were hosting the Roundtable at MOLPay office, a new office of MOLPay in i-City, Shah Alam. The discussion topic of the session was “Digital Payment vs Future Retailing”.

Below is the brief summary of the discussion :

In view of the China payment giants – Alipay and WeChat – have landed in Malaysia, MOLPay commented that Malaysia homegrown payment companies may have a very slim chance to win the battle, however, work closely with them and leverage on each other strength would be a better choice.

Alipay and WeChat promote QR payment instead of online payment method, hence, local payment gateway company would be their partner to facilitate the payment transaction.

However, Credit Card like VISA, MASTER Card and AMEX may face a greater threat when payment does not need to make via a plastic card and transaction fee is revoked.

The efficiency of a transaction by using cryptocurrency may not happen soon in Malaysia, as through use cases, blockchain aids in moving high-value transactions, which not possible to transact through the payment gateway. Therefore, blockchain/cryptocurrency transaction has less threat to a payment gateway company.

There are 8 associations – MRCA, MRA, Hotel Association and etc, was called by Tourism Malaysia to advise members (merchants) to enable QR payment or accept Alipay to capture the huge China tourist income.

MRCA shared that according to Tourism Malaysia 70 million Chinese tourists will visit Malaysia annually and this had made Chinese tourists as the second income to Malaysia.

Tourism Malaysia engages with Tencent Data to develop 4 videos that target the China market to attract Chinese to travel into Malaysia. In this engagement, Tencent support in data analysis on Tencent data and do retarget marketing on its users by using the videos.

It is proud that Malaysia is the first country to sealed this collaboration with Tencent.

Nevertheless, during the discussion, MDEC eCommerce Division had shared on the National eCommerce Strategic Roadmap (NESR) and the next move in 2018.

eProcurement that take place in B2B and B2G would be the next focus on NESR.

For more information about Malaysia NESR, may click on https://www.internetalliance.my/ia-library/